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Five Recent Facebook Upgrades That Nonprofits Need to Know About

June 11, 2012

If there is one thing that nonprofit social media managers are learning (or should be learning) from utilizing new media it’s that technology is now constantly in flux. As soon as you learn and become comfortable with a tool set, it’s replaced with a new one. The best social media managers will adapt quickly, embrace a state of constant learning, and not allow themselves to become easily agitated by modern nonprofit technology. That said, in recent months Facebook has launched a slew of new features for Facebook Pages. My favorite five are listed below. The others will be covered in my upcoming webinars on Facebook and Facebook Apps for Nonprofits.

1) New App Center Launched, “Giving” Category Dropped

Facebook has launched a new App Center for Timeline and Mobile with over 600 Apps. Originally launched in February 2012 as an App Gallery with three “Giving” Apps, the “Giving” category has been dropped and the three Giving Apps replaced with two Lifestyles Apps and one Utilities App:

For nonprofit Facebook Page Admins on the go, Facebook recently released a new Facebook Pages Manager App for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Admins can use the app to post to their Pages, comment, get notifications of activity, manage Admins, and view Page Insights:

3) Ability to Schedule Status Updates in Advance

For nonprofits with a global audience, this is a long-time needed functionality for Facebook Pages. As those of us in the United States, Canada and Latin America are wrapping up our work days, Asia and Australia are just beginning theirs – and then hours later those in the Middle East, Africa, and then Europe come online to a new day as well. Third-party apps like HootSuite and TweetDeck have long allowed admins to schedule Facebook Status Updates in advance, however, as recent study’s have shown, doing so can decrease your Page’s Likes and Comments by 70%. So, to schedule a Status Update using Facebook, as I did below on the Nonprofit Organizations Facebook Page, begin by selecting the “Schedule” icon from your posting module:

4) New Promoted Posts

I have noticed a significant drop in engagement on the Nonprofit Organizations Facebook Page over the last month. On average my Status Updates are only being reached by 11% of my fans and thus receiving a lot less Likes and Comments:

Clearly, Facebook has changed the algorithm of Status Update exposure in the News Feed again – just in time for the launch of their new Promoted Posts functionality. This blog post will be posted as a $30 Promoted Post on Monday morning, June 11. I’ll let you know how it goes and if it was worth it:

5) Ability to Translate Status Updates Using Bing

The ability for fans to translate your Page’s Status Updates into their native language appears to have been launched in October 2011, though I didn’t notice it until very recently. I had seen the functionality on Profiles, but not on Pages. A few months back I even visited numerous Pages that post in other languages and the translation functionality was not there. That said, it’s there now and it’s a simple upgrade with big implications. Nonprofits with a global presence no longer need to publish multiple Status Updates in multiple languages and as activists and social do-gooders, the breakthrough of the language barrier on Facebook gives nonprofits an unprecedented opportunity to build a global community:

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